Mission-Ready: Physical Fitness, Operational Demands & the Military Pentathlon

Workshop | Military Pentathlon Jørstadmoen 2025

Sjur Fortun Øfsteng | PhD

Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy

sofsteng@mil.no

September 23, 2025

Outline of todays workshop

What is this workshop about - working with the theory

what - how - why?

Brief recap from the lecture
- Mine forelesninger
- Knut Sindre forelesning
Your working demand.
Longer assignment..
Intro til leksjonene - min kadettene på at leksjonene vil lede til workshop hvor man vil jobbe med refleksjoner/diskusjoner
- what to do?

Workshop tips:

Start strong, end stronger
End stronger: agenda - point at what we have learned, create highlight –> ask people what they have learned to get an summary
How did you feel to day: look at the progression, make people see the progression
REDUCE the fade out of workshops.
Be confident - only one way of doing this workshop
Parking lot - save issues so they feel heard and makes them more relaxed during the work session

Meeting your military work demands

Aquired knowledge following the workshop

What are your working demands in your position?

How will you achieve these working demands?

Why is this of importance?

Brief introduction to the workshop

The complex soldier

Physical Performance Continuum

(Figure inspired from: Billing and Drain 2017; Drain and Reilly 2019)

Physical training, PES and MSKI prevention strategies are co-dependent factors, and central to organisational capability within physically demanding occupations.
You are able to meet the occumpational demands, which demands a level of physical fitness. This is of importance to prevent MSI..
- Focus on developing occupationlly-relevant physical capacitites to improve occupational performance, and reduce MSKI risk, rather than focus on task performance (e.g. load carriage).
Consider implementing physical employment standard as maximal performance tests, rather than dichotomous pass/fail tests, to better understand the relationship between occupationally-relevant physical capacity and MSKI risk.
Development of coherent, well characterized physical training continuum, inclusive of both physical training and psychological is critical to the optimal development and maintenance of workforce performance capacity.

Changes following field exercises/ranger training, operations/deployment

Figure created with data from Ojanen 2022
Doctoral Thesis

The complex soldier

Occupational task requirements
Requirements are many for the modern soldier

The modern battlefield sets high demands and challenges to soldiers’ physical and psycological domains. Even though the development of technology har relieved some of the physical and psychological burden on the battlefield, the overall load placed on soldiers has increased and the time for recovery has decreased.
All the stressors, point, have negative effects on soldiers performance in the battlefield. As a consequence of all these stressors, it is essential for soldiers to have adequate physical and psychological status to manage all the occupational tasks they have to perform.
Need for high physical, psycological and cognitive readiness to be successful in their everyday occupational tasks
Soldiers need to be in good physical and psycological shape to make decisions quickly and responsible, even when they are in sleep deprivation, energy deficit of physically fatigued. Good physical performance is connected to resilience, as well as psychological and cognitive performance
Studies have shown that good physical performance is connected to resilience, as well as psychological and cognitive performance.
So, when designing physical training programs for soldiers, it is important to find an optimal balance between physical training and military specific training to avoid overreaching and training interference.
A sufficient physical performance level helps the soldier to recover faster and to be more prepared for different tasks.
ALL THIS SHOULD be carefully considered when trying to plan and implement optimal physical training programs for soldiers.
What is these stress factors, upper side of the figure….

Icebreaker 😎 (10 min)

First task of reflection: Physical skills and mission ready

If you had to lead a mission tomorrow, what physical skills would you most rely on?

Occupational task requirements, can you mention some occupational tasks you will frequently experience in your field

Spend 6 minutes to discuss reflecting upon this question with your fellow cadet

Military working demands

What is your working demand in your field of expertise?
- Spend two minutes to discuss reflecting upon this question

Military operations and physical fitness

Military readiness

Military readiness is dependent of soldiers’ physical fitness

Session 1: What Makes a Combat-Ready Soldier? (15 mins)

Discussion groups of three persons;

Why fitness is more that just passing physical training tests?

Elaborate of the idea of “functional” fitness vs. “test” fitness”

Session 1: What Makes a Combat-Ready Soldier? (15 mins)

Evaluation of the effects of physical training programmes on occupational task performance, should measure relative strain, such as percentage of maximal capacity, of the participants while performing the task in addition to the performance outcome. These data provide more insight into an individuals ability to cope with occupational demands.
Strength; Muscle activation - which is feasible? Put on some more measurement equipment, EMG devices?

Max muscle neural activation (isometric) - dynamic movement muscle activation.

Other measurements your think is relevant VO2max and crawling - digging (portable vo2 equipment).

Session 2: Military work demands

Strength capacity

Moderate to strong correlations (r > 0.4)

Endurance capacity

Moderate to strong correlations (r > 0.4)

(Data from: Hauschild et al. 2017; Hendrickson et al. 2010; Mala et al. 2015; NATO 2019; Ojanen et al. 2018)

Session 2: What Makes a Combat-Ready Soldier? (25 mins)

Common combat roles and physical tasks (e.g. carrying gear, movement under fire, tactical obstacles)

Discussion;

“How does your (the cadet) daily physical training reflect these demands?”

If not in particular: How can you implement some of these working demand in your training day?

Session 3: From Mission Readiness to the Military Pentathlon (25 mins)

Group task:

Explain how each one aligns with real-life soldiering skills (speed, coordination, endurance, decision-making)
- Transferable to your field of speciality?
- In which situations can you meet these skills in your field of specialty?

Cadets individual task:

Which event would challenge you most and why?

Group task:

Design a weekly PT session that includes at least one combat skill and one pentathlon-inspired drill

Wrap-Up & Cadet Takeaways (15 mins)

Recap key ideas:

Training with purpose

Linking PT to leadership and mission-readiness

Share a 1-page “Cadet Combat Conditioning Plan Template”

Optional: Introduce a Squad Challenge to try pentathlon-style drills weekly

Ideas to work on

work demand - dig, crawl ect. and do we have valid tests which is associated with this working demand?
Capacity analysis (are you on point?)
General demand
Challenges of performing systematic training over time in a military context?

References

Billing, Dan C., and Jace R. Drain. 2017. “International Congress on Soldiers’ Physical Performance 2017: Research Priorities Across the Service Members Operational Lifecycle.” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 20 (November): S1–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2017.10.025.

Drain, Jace R., and Tara J. Reilly. 2019. “Physical Employment Standards, Physical Training and Musculoskeletal Injury in Physically Demanding Occupations.” Edited by Gemma S. Milligan, Sam D. Blacker, Pieter E. H. Brown, and Andrew G. Siddall. Work 63 (4): 495–508. https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-192963.

Hauschild, V. D., D. W. DeGroot, S. M. Hall, T. L. Grier, K. D. Deaver, K. G. Hauret, and B. H. Jones. 2017. “Fitness Tests and Occupational Tasks of Military Interest: A Systematic Review of Correlations.” Journal Article. Occup Environ Med 74 (2): 144–53. https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2016-103684.

Hendrickson, N. R., M. A. Sharp, J. A. Alemany, L. A. Walker, E. A. Harman, B. A. Spiering, D. L. Hatfield, et al. 2010. “Combined Resistance and Endurance Training Improves Physical Capacity and Performance on Tactical Occupational Tasks.” Journal Article. Eur J Appl Physiol 109 (6): 1197–1208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1462-2.

Mala, J., T. K. Szivak, S. D. Flanagan, B. A. Comstock, J. Z. Laferrier, C. M. Maresh, and W. J. Kraemer. 2015. “The Role of Strength and Power During Performance of High Intensity Military Tasks Under Heavy Load Carriage.” Journal Article. US Army Med Dep J, 3–11.

NATO, Report. 2019. Journal Article.

Ojanen, T., H. Kyröläinen, M. Igendia, and K. Häkkinen. 2018. “Effect of Prolonged Military Field Training on Neuromuscular and Hormonal Responses and Shooting Performance in Warfighters.” Journal Article. Mil Med 183 (11-12): e705–12. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usy122.